Britain urged to ‘Clean for the Queen’ with anti-litter app

Members of the public are being urged to report environmental issues to their local council using a mobile app, as part of a new anti-litter behaviour change campaign launched to coincide with the Queen's 90th birthday celebrations.


Environmental reporting service Love Clean Streets officially launched the ‘Clean for the Queen’ campaign at Sir John Cass’s Foundation and Red Coat School in Stepney, London, on Friday (15 January).

The campaign aims to “clear up Britain” in time for Her Majesty’s 90th birthday which will be officially celebrated in June 2016. Afghanistan war hero Michael Swain, actor Tyger Drew Honey and actress Vicki Michelle joined students in a litter-picking clean-up effort last week to coincide with the campaign’s launch.

Love Clean Streets founder Ian Blackburn said: “The response to Clean for the Queen campaign so far has been fantastic, but we want reporting environmental issues to be in the forefront of everyone’s mind all year round.”

How the app works…

The Love Clean Streets initiative allows people to report environmental issues, such as littering and fly-tipping, to their local council using a smartphone application.

Users can supply photo evidence and a brief description of the issue before sending the complaint directly to the nearest local council, attached with GPS co-ordinates. A live map on the Love Clean Streets website then displays where problems have been reported.

With support from environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, Love Clean Streets will be generating ‘litter blitzes’ across the country over the next two months and will host huge litter clear-ups from 4-6 March.

This campaign for people to report on any issues in their own living areas aims to build on a sense of pride in British communities. Research from Keep Britain Tidy found that 75% of adults in England are proud to live in their town and city, largely due to feeling that the area is clean. 

Love Clean Streets also hopes that the use of the Queen’s birthday as a catalyst for litter picking will generate media exposure on UK waste issues as this campaign becomes synonymous with the birthday celebrations.

The first national anti-litter campaign occurred in 1953, the same year as the Queen’s coronation. This was swiftly followed by the establishment of Keep Britain Tidy.

Innovation for the nation

Keep Britain Tidy has been involved with a variety of innovative projects aimed at highlighting the UK’s litter problems. The group has previously backed the Litter Manifesto, which calls on the Government to tackle the UK’s £1bn litter problem.

More recently, it was involved with a campaign at Oxford Street, which was ‘littered’ with brightly-coloured circles in order to raise awareness about chewing gum waste. Westminster was also fitted with giant cigarettes, voting ashtrays and music-playing poles – again to raise litter awareness – a pilot scheme that Keep Britain Tidy claimed reduced litter by 26%.

Matt Mace

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